Darkest Friend
by Crowlows19
Summary: Harry Potter engaged in a desperate mission to save the world. He failed and in the process became the one thing he never wanted to be. A killer. Time travel. Ficmas in July. One Shot.


**IMPORTANT:**

Hey everyone! This was written for a contest at ficmasinjuly(dot)org. If you liked this story _please_ vote for it on the website. This is for the September submission so the voting is only open until the end of the month. You'll find some other good fanfics there as well. Thanks and enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

/

Lucius had been more than happy to accept this assignment right alongside McNair and Lestrange. The three young men had been marked not two weeks ago and they had already been sent on an assignment by the Dark Lord himself. Such things only occurred when one was being groomed for the inner circle.

They had accepted, of course, without even the slightest hesitation. Although, McNair had expressed some concern (much later as he wasn't suicidal) about the small smirk the Dark Lord had on his face as he dismissed them.

"I don't like it," he had said. The other two hadn't thought to give it much attention. The Dark Lord was always smirking and McNair never liked anything. But Lucius would later learn to regard McNair's gut feelings as a type of second sight. The man had the uncanny knack of knowing when a situation was about to go south.

Tonight was one of those nights. They were in a rather seedy Muggle neighborhood in Stockport. It made Lucius's skin crawl, being so close to the disgusting creatures in their natural habitat but he managed to force it down to continue on with the job at hand. The three of them had foregone their Wizarding robes but were still dressed quite exquisitely.

Lucius had known that their clothes-expensive at best-would attract attention. Even Muggles could recognize superior breeding when they saw it. But he expected the deplorable building to be deserted at three in morning. He hadn't expected roving gangs of Muggle teens in horrible clothes and horrible scowls prowling around the streets and front door. Those Muggles scared him horribly and he fought with himself to keep moving.

They went to the fifth floor and quickly located the correct flat number. Lucius knocked, his wand hidden just behind his back. He felt ready. He didn't know why this Muggle was so important or why the Dark Lord insisted he be taken alive but Lucius knew he could do this. He'd been preparing for this moment for years.

The door opened.

A man stood in front of him.

The stench of alcohol.

The sounds of music.

Lucius froze.

"Who are you?" the man asked, his black eyebrows crinkling in confusion as he eyed the young Death Eater in front of him. The frozen one, mouth slightly agape, and looking as if he would be sick at any moment. The other two couldn't see the look on the blonde's face and perhaps that was for the best. There was so much less embarrassment that way. "Can I help you?"

"Are you Harry?" McNair asked, sensing that Lucius wasn't planning on speaking anytime soon.

"Yes," the man replied. Instantly there were three wands in his face. Lucius had snapped out of his state just in time to bring his arm up in sync with the others. This Harry fellow seemed unconcerned with the three wands. There was no confusion on his face though, he knew who they were. _Wizards_. The man's right eyebrow lifted in a sardonic sort of expression and he smirked. "Cute," he sneered.

Lucius had but a moment to ponder what he may have meant by that before he felt himself being thrown-magically-into the wall behind him. Two other thumps told him that his friends had faced the same experience as well. They all crumpled to the ground.

"Let me guess," the man-Harry-said as he knelt before them. Lucius attempted to find his wand but when he looked around his eyes landed on the man's hand. He was holding three wands. "Dearest Voldemort sent his three newest pets to give me some sort of fucking message."

The blond aristocrat wished to speak, to deride the man for daring to say the Dark Lord's name, but his tongue was frozen. Clearly, this was not a Muggle. A Muggleborn perhaps?

"Am I right?" he asked, kneeling down so that he was eye level with the dumbstruck blond and his two friends. It was at this moment that Lucius finally got a good look at him. The man's simple orange button down was open, reveling a well muscled but heavily scarred chest. The sleeves were rolled up to the elbow and Lucius's eyes were suddenly riveted to the left forearm.

It looked like a Dark Mark except it was rougher, it didn't move, and it was a slightly different design. It looked like the primitive version of his own mark.

Tearing his grey eyes away he took in the rest of the suddenly much more mysterious stranger in front of him. Shaggy, impossibly disheveled black hair, stark green eyes, and a lightning scar on his forehead. His leather belt held up ill fitting blue jeans that looked ready to fall off what looked like a starving body. His trainers were a style Lucius had never seen before: black with three yellow stripes on the side.

"HEY!" the man shouted suddenly, regaining Lucius's full attention. "Why are you here?"

"He," Lucius stammered automatically, surprised that he could suddenly talk again, "wanted us to kidnap you."

"Stop," Lestrange hissed, knowing they would be killed if Lucius continued talking about the assignment. For all they knew this was a Muggleborn working for Dumbledore. Lucius doubted it though. He had a Dark Mark, even though it looked so different from his own.

"He asked for me alive?" the man pressed, sounding surprised. Lucius nodded. "Huh, interesting."

"Who are you?" Lestrange asked, finally realizing that he was still on the floor and climbing to his feet. The others quickly followed, including the man.

"Harry Green," he responded and then glanced around the corridor. "We shouldn't talk here. Give me a minute." He disappeared back into his flat though he left the door wide open. They heard him rummaging around but they refused to go in. Their standards were too high to allow them to comfortably set foot inside.

The man soon reappeared with a rucksack over one shoulder and a genuine smile on his face. He handed the three young men their respective wands.

"Here you go, boys," he told them and then stood and waited for them to do something. Nobody seemed to move for a moment. "Lead on."

And soon enough they were outside again and each laying a finger on the candy wrapper serving as their Portkey. The familiar tug behind the navel had nothing on Lucius's glee at having completed the assignment no matter how differently it had gone than he expected. He decided not to dwell on it. The Portkey took them directly to the Meeting Chamber, which at this time of night was empty but for a single figure.

The three Death Eaters stood rigid, their heads bowed in respect to the man sitting in a throne-like chair on a raised dais. The Dark Lord seemed to barely react and Lucius managed a glance to Green, who simply stood and stared at the powerful wizard. Straight in the eye no less. Lucius had never seen such disrespect.

"Hello Harry," the Dark Lord greeted sounding pleasant. Lucius couldn't tell if there was anything under the obvious tone.

"Hello," Green responded sounding just as pleasant.

"You look horrible."

"You don't."

The Dark Lord let out a chuckle at that. Lucius had heard the frightening man laugh on several occasions but this was first time he'd ever heard the man laugh with any sort of genuine mirth. Then suddenly he stood and descended from the dais to stand directly in front of the stranger. The Dark Lord placed both hands on the other man's shoulders in a gesture of friendship that Lucius hadn't ever thought possible. People such as the Dark Lord did not have friends; they had loyal followers and minions.

"It is good to see you old friend," the Dark Lord said, smiling widely. Green returned it.

"Well, I'm glad you decided to remember me," he replied. "Though I'm a little disappointed in the welcoming committee. Malfoy's boy? Really?"

"I thought you would find it amusing," the other man said, amused himself. "Poor Abraxas nearly had a panic attack when I informed him of who his son was fixing to meet tonight." Green let out a gruff laugh. Lucius couldn't help but look directly at the two, a little stunned. His father had panicked? Over him? His cold, sly, unemotional father had panicked? The Dark Lord caught him looking and Lucius didn't dare look away as the red eyes caught his gaze and held him. "Lucius, why don't you go and fetch my inner circle? Then go home; get some rest."

"Yes, sir," he replied and quickly moved to leave.

"McNair, Lestrange, you are dismissed for the night."

"Yes, sir," the two replied and left just after him.

/

The nine members of the inner circle, nine of the original thirteen Death Eaters, weren't summoned for anything other than show. While the newer recruits would have no clue as to who the grungy looking Muggle was, _they_ would. They remembered him perfectly even if it had been ten years since he'd last been in the Wizarding world.

"He has returned to us," the Dark Lord informed his top Lieutenants. "I will inform you of the exact change in duties later. Dismissed."

In the end, they had been dragged from their beds for a minute long meeting. But it was enough to leave most of them rattled. They hadn't thought they'd ever see this man again. In fact, many of them had assumed he was dead.

As the door closed behind the last one, Voldemort turned back to the other man.

"You will need to bathe before I present you to anyone else," he informed him. Harry scowled darkly at the red-eyed man.

"You'll present me to no one," he snapped. "They may cower at your feet but I don't."

"Either way, you will need to bathe, Harry."

"The stink will go away," Harry said, unconcerned. Voldemort simply lifted his eyebrow. Harry lifted and crossed his arms.

"There is much more at stake here, Harry," Voldemort finally said. "Please do not make it difficult."

"You should have left me where I was then," Harry responded coldly, green eyes snapping angrily.

"No," the red eyed man snapped and for a moment they were back in their sixth year of Hogwarts, Harry tricking him during Wizard's chess, and Tom forever getting annoyed by it. Despite being in rival houses the two had bonded quickly over Potions work and Ancient Runes diagrams.

Tom had found in Harry what he had never before been able to find. A friend. Harry had challenged him with both the skill and the gall to back it all up. The shorter boy had been feisty in a way that a Slytherin never could be. It was why Harry had made a great second and why Tom had never worried about Harry trying to covet any of the power for himself. The Gryffindor was incapable of deceit and sly maneuvering.

Harry was a soldier. A brilliant soldier but he was a true Gryffindor. Steadfast, brave, and ultimately a pain in Tom's ass. For reasons not even Tom could fully understand, the Slytherin Prefect had worked hard to keep Harry out of trouble during their school days. There was something about Harry that was special. A kindred spirit really and Tom was ferociously protective over it. He had protected Harry at the worst of times and Harry had helped him begin building his empire.

The short, underfed, and, now, under washed man was his best friend. He was the only one who Tom had allowed to continue using his real name. Even his Slytherin cohorts weren't allowed to use anything other than the alias he had created.

Many of them were jealous of Harry. He knew that. He also knew that Harry either didn't see it or didn't care. His poor Gryffindor friend was as blind as they came when Slytherins were involved. Tom wondered how he could possibly be so good at poker considering this weakness.

The jealousy that had begun in the past continued into the future. By the time he had been destroyed, Harry was probably the most hated man in Britain. He was Head of the Death Eaters and was highly resented by the Purebloods because of it. After all, Harry was proud of his half-blood status and any Death Eater caught hurting an innocent Muggle felt the blackest of curses from Harry's wand. After his body had been ripped to shreds by the ancient Magic Lily Potter had evoked, Voldemort had fled the country.

He ended up in a small village in Albania, possessing snakes and rats to get by. When a small baby was left to die in the woods by a highly psychotic older sibling, he possessed that too. The curse of the sibling had become the curse of the baby and it was tainted enough that no deformities took place when he entered. The baby's soul-not yet firmly rooted to the world-had been kicked out of the little body and sent to the spirit world.

That was when the villagers had found him and taken him back to the child's home.

Three years later he was still there, terrorizing the parents with his odd behavior and strange collection of animal organs and herbs. They thought him a demon. He was brewing Potions. The family had just been starting to talk about exorcism when Harry found him. He broke in so quietly that Voldemort didn't even know he was there until he was being shaken awake.

He had looked up with bleary eyes to see Harry Green. His favorite Gryffindor.

"You're adorable when you're a little tyke," Harry had said with a smirk. The vanquished Dark Lord had growled. The man had simply chuckled and picked him up as if he were a child. Voldemort refused to acknowledge that he was currently trying to masquerade as one.

Years went by. Harry took care of him and Tom really didn't mind. The child's body grew and Tom found himself reliving his childhood. He wasn't sure what Magic Harry had evoked on him without his knowledge but he was regressing. Quickly. By the time his body had reached its seventh year of life, he himself had regressed to the mind of a child. A very brilliant child but a child nonetheless. If he had had his full mental capacities, Tom would have killed Harry.

Soon enough, his memories became fuzzy and he no longer remembered anything about Death Eaters, Salazar Slytherin, or even of Hogwarts itself. Harry never filled in the blanks. He preferred to leave Tom in the dark as much as possible. They ended up in a small shack, built around the solid trunk of a tree in the Amazonian jungle. It was secluded and heavily warded. Absolutely no one could find them.

Tom didn't know it but decades had passed since he'd been 'killed' by the Boy-Who-Lived. Harry was waiting for his other self to die. Dumbledore had already passed from old age, as had McGonagall. All he needed was maybe another century and he would stop slipping Tom the special potions that kept him a small child in both body and mind. He would also be able to stop giving himself deaging potions. They were annoying to make.

A plan. A desperate plan.

That was all he had. And maybe it was a bit convoluted but he thought it alright anyway.

"Harry!"

He was ripped from his thoughts as Tom came running into their little tree house, his excitement evident. With no memory of what made him mad Tom had more or less healed. There had been no reuniting the pieces of his soul, however. Harry had managed to move all the Horcruxes somewhere infinitely more secure before Dumbledore could go looking for them. It was all a part of his plan.

"What?" he asked, looking up momentarily from his cauldron. Tom had been having problems with animal cruelty lately and had already tried to stab Harry with the fire poker during a fit of pure anger. He thought it was necessary to regress the boy just a bit further before he could fully delve into his mind and find the tear. The tear that always caused insanity. The tear Muggles had been trying to explain and Wizards trying to find since insanity was even somewhat understood. He was close. He knew it.

"Can we go see the Lights?"

The lights. He hated hearing about the lights. When he had moved to this jungle, the house had been completely cut off from the world. But now the forest was being torn down and civilization was creeping up on them. Tom was insistent in seeing the lights, which were nothing but fireworks. Harry was terrified of bringing him into contact with any kind of human until the tear was healed.

"We've talked about this Tom," Harry replied sternly. The seven-year-old pouted.

"Please!" he begged. "Just this once!" The hazel eyes of the possessed body looked at him beseechingly. Harry didn't fall for it. After nearly forty years of being confined to a jungle with only a seven year old for company, Harry had long become accustomed to the puppy dog look.

"No," he replied and Tom looked ready to cry. Harry knew that the boy was feeling lonely. After all, it wasn't like Harry-a hardened warrior and Death Eater-was much fun. Even though he had been teaching Tom old Magic for decades. It just wasn't a normal childhood and in the back of his mind Tom had enough memory to know that. Harry sighed and knelt before the bare footed and bare chested cretin. "I've told you Tom. We can't-"

"Go where the people are," Tom finished, his pitiful look disappearing as an angry one took over. Harry was forcibly reminded of why he did what he did. He was reminded of why he had been holed up in this crumbling tree house, sipping deaging potions and trying desperately to re-wire a brain that was extremely complex in its brokenness.

"Do not get angry," Harry said in the soothing voice he had long since mastered, running a hand over the stringy blond hair, and allowing his Magic to well up and over the sides of his reserves. It spilled out into the air around them and eventually Tom's eyes cleared of the anger and was replaced by a general cloud of confusion. He blinked and seemed to forget the moment.

"So no lights?" he asked in a small voice, the innocent part of the child welling back up to the surface.

"No lights," Harry replied. Tom spent the rest of the night playing with a cobra he'd found a few days ago. The next morning Harry slipped some potion into Tom's morning stew and the child was regressed to four. Harry preferred this age. The boy was much more easily influenced and much less stubborn.

The next few years passed without much improvement on the rip in Tom's sanity. He still couldn't find it in the vast blackness that was the boy's subconscious. But it was there, he knew it. And he wasn't about to give up now. He hadn't given up everything, gone back in time, and spent decades searching for a cure all the while masquerading as a Death Eater in order to fail now.

He'd been told that this mission would be difficult. He'd been told that it would be easier to just kill the little devil. But Harry didn't believe in taking the easy path over the right path. This whole thing wasn't about taking life. It was about saving it. Tom's power was vast. He was a greater wizard than Harry was. He was more powerful and had far more potential. What if it was put to good use?

What if Harry could teach Tom how to save the world?

/

It didn't take Harry long to discover that Tom was missing. As a four year old with no memory of his past life or even of his time as a seven year old, Tom was extremely vulnerable. But here, in their new home in the frozen North, they should have been safe.

Harry had taken them to the upper reaches of the world and they were now in an ice cave high in the cliffs of Alaska. Not even urban sprawl could reach them here. Unlike the jungle, this place couldn't be torn down, cultivated, and tamed. Here it was him, Tom, and the few animals lucky enough to have made it this far on the evolutionary path that had ended for most of their relatives millions of years ago. Here, there was next to no danger of being seen and discovered by any sort of human.

It was easy enough to cast long term warming charms. He had made their little ice cave warm, humble, and ultimately comfortable. Sure it was tough living but they were used to it. Most importantly though, it was safe. That was always the goal. Safety.

Until someone had managed to track them down. Someone with far more information than they should have. And someone with a lot of nerve to come into _his_ home and steal _his_ psychotic, deaged, amnesiac four year old of a Dark Lord. And the worst part was that they hadn't even been brave enough to do it while he was actually in the cave. _Of all the nerve!_

He let out a hiss of cuss words that would have once made Mrs. Weasley chase him with her favorite wooden spoon. The one her sons joked about being more dangerous than her wand. The ice cave was destroyed. The charms were broken, their things were ripped, smashed, and shattered. Feeling a sudden sense of overpowering loss, Harry reached for the small, stuffed seal lying on the pile of furs that served as their bed.

Tom loved this toy. He never went anywhere without it and the poor thing had seen more than a few repair charms. Harry had bought it for him when they had first travelled North decades ago. It had never been named. Tom could never decide on which one he liked the best so they never called it anything. It had been his favorite toy. Now it was the only sign that the little boy had ever been here, with him.

His Magic spiked. The ice broke and cracked and groaned as the pressure rose steadily. His eyes, once a brilliant green, shifted to a dark red so reminiscent of Lord Voldemort's from nearly two centuries ago. His teeth were bared in an animalistic snarl that could have rivaled Fenrir Greyback's. Someone had _dared_ to trespass on him. The only thing his mind wanted at this point was revenge.

**BOOM!**

The ice cave exploded in a brilliant show of Magic and light. It collapsed in on itself and pieces as large as boulders shot up into the sky as if it was lava from a volcano that had just exploded. Over two hundred kilometers away, an earthquake monitor station picked up seismic activity. The scientists scrambled around as the needles jumped and machines beeped.

It looked to be a big one.

But as quickly as it had come it was over. And when there was no aftershock they were forced to conclude that it wasn't an earthquake or a volcanic eruption, but something else. They never figured out what.

/

"We are sure that this procedure will work?"

"Yes, sir," the woman replied, her Healer's badge pinned prominently just above her right breast in a show of smug satisfaction. She was clearly proud of her position, as a Healer should be, but combined with the ambitious glint in her eye and the hint of a smirk, she came across as brilliantly arrogant. He didn't appreciate it. "By combining Rune Magics and modern Healing techniques we believe that we can wake him from this coma he seems to have fallen in."

The man, an Unspeakable, looked thoughtfully through the glass separating him and the teenager on the other side. He had once been a part of the team to collect him in that ice cave in Alaska. He'd been a small child then, just past being a toddler really. They had been in the British Magical Embassy in New York when the boy had suddenly screamed out in pain. His hazel eyes turned red, he had bared his teeth, and had even taken a bite out of the man who had been holding him.

They had been so shocked nobody had moved to catch him as he fell out of the wounded man's arms and onto the floor with a hard thud. It was so unexpected. Not ten seconds ago the boy had been crying almost hysterically. He kept calling for someone named Harry and kept asking for his seal.

Now he looked like the spawn of the devil himself. But of course, they shouldn't have expected anything else. Not from the reincarnation of Lord Voldemort himself. But then the boy had fallen into some sort of sleep, a coma like state they hadn't been able to wake him from.

And they needed him awake. They couldn't search his mind, his memories, if he was unconscious. They would never be able to find the Horcruxes if he wasn't awake. It had been ten years and now they had finally found a way that would wake him up from whatever enchanted sleep he'd been in. The Unspeakable didn't understand much about what was happening to the boy or about what was about to happen but he didn't really care. His job was to make sure the boy didn't hurt anyone. That was it.

"Let's do it then," the Unspeakable told the woman giving her the answer she'd been itching to hear for the last hour and a half as he had set up wards and asked security questions. He could tell that his questions about the air ducts had annoyed her.

The ritual was simple enough but it had taken years and countless man hours to fine tune it to the point of perfection. Candles were lit, runes were drawn, words in some dead language were uttered, and eventually the boy began to stir. His eyes fluttered as they struggled to open and he groaned as the light flooded his pupils for the first time in over ten years. He turned his head away and the lights were lowered to a more comfortable level.

"Hello," said the Head Healer, the man in charge of the boy's case. He leaned over, blocking the teen's view of the room and the other people. "What's your name?" No one had ever known if Voldemort was the monster's real name. And if it was they had never had a first name to go with it.

"Tom," the kid chocked out, his voice rough and stiff from disuse. "Tom Riddle Jr."

"Hello Tom," the Healer greeted with faux politeness. The Unspeakable was positive he wasn't the only one feeling his skin crawl right about now. The last thing any of them wanted to do was talk to this 'boy' as it were. It was downright terrifying. They all knew who he was and what he had done. And to think that he just kept on living, despite the hundreds of years that had passed and the end of his empire.

And to think that someone, this Harry character, had been hiding the monster. The man had clearly known what the four year old was because of where they had managed to track him down. Whoever his caretaker had been, he'd been determined to keep the boy hidden away. For what purpose though, they needed to discover.

"Do you know where you are?" the Healer asked. Tom shook his head and then narrowed his eyes even further as if he was concentrating on something important.

"Harry?" the boy asked and suddenly the Unspeakable was sent back to nearly a decade ago. The memory was so vivid and he felt so horrible about it. Despite knowing who 'Tom' was, he had never been good with crying children. The boy had cried for hours-hysterically-as if he'd just been ripped from the arms of his father. And with that thought came a horrible realization.

"Who is Harry?"

"Friend," Tom croaked. "Best friend."

"Harry isn't here," the Healer responded a tad harshly. "Do you know where he might be?"

"Home," the boy said quietly with a cough as the soreness of his throat caught up with him. "My home. Safe house. Little Hangleton." The Healer looked at the Unspeakable over his shoulder as if to share in some sort victory. The Unspeakable didn't fall for it. They had been down that road before with others who were supposed to know the location of the Dark Lord. It was always a trap. They had lost far too many good people to those traps.

The Death Eaters still existed as a quiet and underground society. Someone was still giving them orders and for a long time they had thought it was Lord Voldemort but it had become clear over the last ten years that this was not the case. Perhaps it was this Harry figure that was giving the orders. Information on the Death Eaters was nearly impossible; it was too close knit of a society and it was too far underground. But if they could catch the leader, they could finally destroy the society.

"Are you sure that's where he is?" the Healer pressed.

"No," Tom replied. "He knows."

"Knows what?" the Healer asked, a look of confusion on his face as he once again glanced over his shoulder.

"Knows where I am," Tom replied.

Suddenly the boy's eyes shifted. Red flared and the Unspeakable was thrown back into ten years ago once again. A thin, pale arm flung up from the bed and clasped the Healer by the throat. The man gurgled and spluttered as he tried to scratch at the boy's hand. The Unspeakable and the back-up Healers rushed to the rescue of their fellow reviver.

But the strength of three men literally could not pry away the hand of one teenage boy. A teenage boy that had just woken from a coma. He shouldn't have this kind of strength. But then again, this was Lord Voldemort.

As they pulled, trying desperately to get the trapped Healer from the monster's grasp, the lights flickered. Shadows danced across the wall and ceiling.

_What was happening?_

"AH!" The monster, Voldemort, screamed out in pain. Magic sizzled on his skin, the Unspeakable could feel it. His hand twitched and jerked away from his captive's throat, who fell away with a gasp and coughed as air flooded painfully back into his lungs. The monster continued to scream, his eyes screwed shut. Whatever was happening to him, it was painful. Extremely so.

He fell back onto the bed. Nobody could move. There was no strength left in their bones to propel them forward. Not that any one of them would have known what to do. The monster's skin-it changed.

It burned.

It was as if there was a fire but there was none. Nobody touched him; nobody held him under a spell. And yet, he burned. His skin started to blacken on the hand he'd chocked the Healer with and then moved up and out. Soon his entire body was covered. Still he screamed and still no one moved to help him so rooted they were with their own fear and ignorance.

It took him but a few minutes to pass.

The last scream fell silent some thirty seconds after his body went limp.

Nobody moved. Nobody could really breathe. The smell of burnt flesh made them nauseous. There was a sudden sound that broke the horrible silence and everyone jumped. The ceiling directly above the dead monster became magically active. It looked as if someone was drawing on it, but nobody was there. Thick black lines appeared from nowhere and extended out until they connected and formed a picture.

The Unspeakable recognized it. A Dark Mark. But unlike any Dark Mark he had ever seen before. It was rough, almost primitive. Regardless of what it looked like, the meaning was very clear.

The Death Eaters had turned. They had killed Lord Voldemort.

"Unspeakable," the Healer said and the man looked towards him. The Healer had a bruise that had already started to form on his neck. It was in the shape of a handprint.

"What is it Healer Potter?" he asked as he watched the other man run a hand through his dark locks making his messy bed head even worse. His piercing green eyes looked sad. In the eight years that the man had been in charge of the case, the Unspeakable had never seen him in such a state.

"I'm sorry," Potter said.

"For what?" the Unspeakable asked, confused. What was so important that the man had to bring it up here? With the monster's burnt body lying next to them and a Dark Mark in the ceiling. What could _possibly_ be so important?

"I tried so hard to control him," the Healer said. "His insanity was just too much. I just couldn't find the tear and now, well, now he's gone. So much wasted power." He turned away from them at this point to look at the monster's body. A trace of fondness crossed his features and there was a sudden roaring in the Unspeakable's ears.

It all clicked into place. This expert Healer who had a tremendous resume but no friends, no family, no past colleagues. This man who had shown up suddenly when they needed him most. This man who had been taking care of a monster.

He saw ice.

He saw a four-year-old crying.

He saw a stuffed seal.

It clicked.

_It made sense_.

"You-" he started to shout, rage bubbling to the surface as he began to lunge towards the Head Healer of St. Mungo's. He was never able to touch him. The man-Potter-disappeared into a cloud of black smoke. The Unspeakable was unable to stop his body from pitching forward into that smoke. But he didn't crash into a solid body. He fell right through and continued on to the floor.

They had had him. The man who had taken care of the most notorious Dark Lord for centuries. He had been in the _hospital. _He had been with them all along. And he had simply slipped through their fingers. And he had taken any answers they might have had with him.

The Ministry searched for him.

He remained missing.

Until a land developer started to tear down a piece of the Amazonian jungle and discovered a tree house. An old house with ancient charms and creaky floorboards. And inside that house was the body of an old man. He died of old age; in his sleep, they said. One of the few salvageable items of the house had been an old stuffed seal and two brother wands.

Two wands with a core of phoenix feather.


End file.
